First Ebola case on US soil

Doctors worked to save America's first Ebola virus patient on Saturday after he arrived in the United States from Africa. Ebola-stricken Dr Kent Brantly arrived near Atlanta, Georgia, just before 11:50am (1550 GMT) aboard a private air ambulance and was whisked to a state-of-the-art hospital isolation unit. Dr Brantly is one of 2 American aid workers infected with Ebola as they helped to battle an outbreak of the disease that has claimed more than 700 lives in West Africa since March. The Gulfstream jet, equipped with a collapsible isolation chamber, landed at the Dobbins Air Reserve Base outside Atlanta and the jet pulled up at an aircraft hangar, where it was met by an ambulance and several vehicles, and the convoy then wound its way across Atlanta to Emory University Hospital. Images showed three individuals wearing white bio-suits emerge from the ambulance, with one, apparently Brantly, led gingerly into the hospital. His wife Amber Brantly asked for people to pray for his recovery and that of those stricken with the virus in Liberia. Another Ebola virus-infected American, Nancy Writebol, a Christian missionary worker, is expected to be airlifted back to the US from Africa soon by the same method as Brantly. Brantly and Writebol will be treated at Emory’s cutting-edge isolation unit, which has previously been used to care for individuals infected during the SARS epidemic that erupted in Asia in 2002-2003. It is one of only four such facilities in the US and is located near the CDC headquarters in Atlanta. Brantly’s arrival marks the first time a patient infected with Ebola has been treated anywhere in the US, according to a news agency.